Verdezyne raises $3M for organism-made biofuels
Verdezyne, a company that develops special microorganisms used to produce biofuels and biochemicals, has brought in $3 million of an expected $15.2 million round of equity, according to a filing with the SEC. Based in Carlsbad, Calif., the company is backed by Life Science Angels, Monitor Ventures, OVP Venture Partners and Tech Coast Angels. It also received a $1.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Big Stage Entertainment wants you to take your 3-D avatars from game to game
If you’re going to go to a lot of trouble to create a 3-D avatar, or virtual character, you might as well spread it around. That’s the point of Big Stage Entertainment’s PortableYou program.
The company uses a facial modeling system to render a faithful version of someone’s face by building a 3-D replica from three photos taken from slightly different angles. The photorealistic product can then be imported into video games, virtual worlds, mobile applications… Continue Reading
Lehman Bros. backs myShape amid death rattle
Only a few weeks before its demise, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. led a third round of funding for myShape, an online store that helps women find clothes that fit their exact dimensions. The company’s venture branch committed to the contribution in August before filing for bankruptcy in mid-September.
Seemingly unaffected by the Lehman fund’s collapse, the investment round remains open. So far, Pasadena, Calif.-based myShape has raised $12 million, and hopes to close above its target… Continue Reading
Big Stage closing a new round of venture money
Next month, personalized video-mashup site Big Stage will launch its public beta. The site lets you upload three high-resolution photos of yourself. It then stitches those photos into a 3-D avatar. You can accessorize your avatar and put your avatar into videos and amusing scenery. You can then share it with your friends.
The company got to show off its 3-D avatar technology to the world during Intel CEO Paul Otellini’s keynote speech at the Consumer Electronics Show… Continue Reading
Poll by SodaHead: Is it okay to export friends’ emails from Facebook
SodaHead is one of many companies that offers a polling widget that you can embed on a blog or social network. Others include Polldaddy, Pollection, JS-Kit, Vizu, and others. But SodaHead differentiates itself by being focused on social interactions.
Poll Answers
SodaHead pairs polls with features such as discussion forums and Myspace-style user profiles, so users can both vote and discuss the issue presented in the poll, and do things like comment on each others’ profiles.
To… Continue Reading
Coda Genomics: Better proteins through engineering
Coda Genomics, a Laguna Hills, Calif., biotechnology company founded in 2005, concentrates on a thorny but little-realized challenge in biotechnology: Genetic engineering is easy. Protein manufacture is hard.
The biotech industry was founded on the science of recombinant DNA, which is essentially the trick of taking a gene from one species (such as a human) and inserting it into the genome of another (say, the microbe E. coli). Since many genes are essentially templates for… Continue Reading